It’s been a weird, unpredictable season across the NHL, on the ice and in the standings. So it stands to reason that that weirdness has carried over to the trade deadline, explaining what we saw unfold Friday.
Big, blockbuster deals were in short supply, in part because there simply aren’t as many rental players as there used to be. More cap space injected into the system the last two years has meant more teams have been able to retain their top talent, which in turn means many (most?) of the bigger-name players traded over the last few days had term on their contracts (i.e., Nazem Kadri, MacKenzie Weegar, Justin Faulk, Brayden Schenn, Conor Garland, Nicolas Roy, Nic Dowd, etc.).
The NHL’s new CBA rules effectively eliminating double retention trades and instituting a playoff salary cap this season complicated matters, too, which is why you often saw money going the other way as cap counterbalances (i.e., Victor Olofsson and Olli Määttä to Calgary, Justin Holl and Jonathan Drouin to St. Louis, Andrew Mangiapane to Chicago, etc.).
More than the names, however, the destinations were what stood out as unique this year. While there were still big moves made by long-established powers, such as the league-leading Colorado Avalanche — who cleaned up in acquiring Kadri, Roy, Brett Kulak and Nick Blankenburg — a lot of the most aggressive forays came from clubs that are newcomers to deadline buying.
The four biggest names on defense, for example, were all traded to teams that haven’t made the playoffs in forever:
• The Utah Mammoth, who have made the playoffs once since 2012, going way back to the other-franchise, other-name Phoenix Coyotes days, made a bold play in adding top-pairing veteran Weegar for a pile of picks.
• The Anaheim Ducks, playoff-less since 2018, shocked the league at 1 a.m. ET Friday morning by acquiring John Carlson, the Capitals veteran of nearly 1,200 games.
• The Detroit Red Wings, about to earn their first postseason berth in a decade, landed Faulk by outbidding other suitors for the Blues stalwart.
• The Buffalo Sabres, set to end the NHL’s longest-ever playoff drought next month, added Logan Stanley and Luke Schenn via Winnipeg.
The last time those four teams were in the playoffs together was effectively another era for the NHL, way back in 2011, when the Vancouver Canucks were the best team in the league. (They are currently the worst by a mile.)
Utah, Anaheim, Detroit and Buffalo were joined by other upstarts as buyers, too, with the Columbus Blue Jackets, Seattle Kraken and Ottawa Senators adding Garland, Bobby McMann and Warren Foegele as they attempt to make the postseason and disrupt the established order.
Some of the previously dominant teams, meanwhile, are in shambles.
Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving delivered perhaps the most somber press conference of the day, going into detail about how the franchise’s plummet down the standings — from fourth overall last season to 25th this year — was partly his failure to construct a good enough roster. (The Leafs were one of the week’s biggest sellers in shipping out Roy, McMann and Scott Laughton for draft picks.)
The rival Florida Panthers’ playoff chances are effectively nil after three consecutive trips to the final (and back-to-back Stanley Cup wins), and they were uncharacteristically quiet on deadline day, without any impact rentals — aside from netminder Sergei Bobrovsky — to contemplate dealing. The New York Rangers were relatively inactive, too, as their transformation into league bottom-feeders felt complete after they dealt star Artemi Panarin for a relative song last month.
Other teams that have had plenty of success in the last decade, winning either Cups or Presidents’ Trophies — the Boston Bruins, Washington Capitals, Winnipeg Jets, St. Louis Blues — either did nothing or held a mini fire sale. All four have very murky futures, given their retools-on-the-fly are in various stages of non-success.
What does it all mean, James?
Well, perhaps Colorado, the Tampa Bay Lightning, Dallas Stars or Carolina Hurricanes step into the void that’s left and re-establish themselves as the top dogs in the league. (Combined, they have a whopping 68 percent chance of winning it all, so that would make sense.) Even the Vegas Golden Knights or Edmonton Oilers figuring out their situations after tumultuous regular seasons wouldn’t be a shock.
But for the first time in a very long time, it feels like there’s a widespread changing of the guard in the NHL, with new challengers getting better and bolder after years of accumulating draft picks and young talent and sitting out days like Friday. As it stands, for example, the long middling Minnesota Wild appear to be a true powerhouse. The Sabres, Ducks, Mammoth, Montreal Canadiens and Red Wings — who all entered the season as five of the younger teams in the league — have an 82 percent or better chance of making the playoffs.
If the three Metropolitan Division surprises in the Pittsburgh Penguins, New York Islanders and Blue Jackets join them, it could be a playoffs best framed as Revenge of the Rebuilds (or Retools), given how many players would be playing in their first postseasons. All of this has been a long time coming, given how repetitive and stagnant the NHL’s Final Four has become, and it’s been facilitated partly by (a) the salary cap finally opening up post-pandemic and (b) the aging out of the cores of so many of the old guard.
So if there’s a silver lining to this relatively dull deadline, it’s the fact that the playoffs should be anything but, with so many new teams and unexpected heroes set to attempt to topple the old standbys.
Some of them have already been falling, as evidenced by the direction the talent was flowing Friday. Now we have to wait and see if that changes who hoists the Cup in three months.
